Midwest Gaming Classic: A Retrospective in Video

Our first video featurette

Classic gaming conventions are liberally sprinkled throughout most of the continental United States: The west coast has Classic Gaming Expo; the east coast has Philly Classic; the southern midwest has Austin Gaming Expo. But until recently, the northern midwest has been, quite literally, left in the cold.

But not any more. What started life as Jagfest in 1997 has grown into Midwest Gaming Classic, which was held this year from May 22-23 near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Held at the Brookfield Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center, Midwest Gaming Classic spilled over into multiple conference rooms, each holding something for everyone: Pinball vendors; Video game vendors; classic home console vendors; a classic computer and video gaming museum (with playable games); a display of homebrew games (many playable); speakers giving topics ranging from E3 news to caring and restoring your collection; Twin Galaxies holding a high score championship; modern LAN gaming; the list goes on and on.

There were a lot of vendors, selling everything from classic Atari 2600 carts all the way up to modern PC software, and everything inbetween. Looking for a Vectrex? Want to buy a full-size MAME cabinet? Need some parts to rebuild your pinball? Interested in some of the latest "new games for old systems"? Or are you just looking for a copy of Yar's Revenge? Not only could you find all of the above to purchase, you could play practically anything you saw. This was the true spirit of the convention: A celebration of classic gaming. You were free to play practically anything out on display, and there were many great conversations with the vendors and curators of the museum. One truly remarkable display of this spirit was the fact that some collectors had purchased vendor tables not to sell things but just to set up their own collection so that others could play it. One example in particular was a man who had every single Lynx game ever made (including prototypes and homebrews), and eight Lynxes with comlynx cables set up for multiplayer gaming. This type of selfless gaming spirit was infused throughout the entire show.

MobyGames was on-site to document this rising convention, a product of the hard work of Dan Loosen of GOATstore and others. We've compiled a 6-minute video retrospective of Midwest Gaming Classic 2004, and are pleased to present it to you as our first video feature article. The video is available in the following formats:

Note: The MPEG-1 file is in VideoCD format, which can be burnt to a CD and watched on your DVD player. The Quicktime files use MPEG-4 and AAC and require Quicktime 6.2 or higher to play. The RealMedia file is intended for older computers with modems only and requires RealPlayer 8 or higher to play.

This is our first video article, so please let Trixter know what you think.